Tired of looking in your neighbor's windows from your porch? Is the blazing sun putting loungers in the hot seat? Take action. "Hang sheer draperies on tension rods," advises designer Wade Scherrer. "They're a good way to mask the view and give yourselves privacy," and as you can see in Photo 1, also give the room a light and airy feeling.
- To make sheer panels yourself, determine how much of the window you want to cover, and cut a piece of fabric to fit your measurements, plus 4 inches for rod pockets. Turn the top and bottom edges over 1/2 inch; then turn over another 1-1/2 inches. Press. Stitch along inside edges of rod pockets, as for a hem. Insert tension rods into the pockets and hang by inserting rod into the top of the window's frame.
- Don't feel like sewing? Hang ready-made cafe curtains.
If your porch has a view you'd rather frame than hide, hang barely-there fabric swags across the tops of the windows. For the window treatment shown in Photo 2, cut a rectangle of sheer fabric to the window width plus 12 inches, then hem the edges. Knot the ends of the rectangles, and stuff the knots into hollowed-out bamboo rods cut to fit the windows. The bamboo rods slip into closet-rod brackets that you screw into the inside edges of the trim.
Continued on page 4: Tie-On Slipcover
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